Micheal Thrash [son of John & Rachel (Umstot)] was born in 1834 and died in 1903. He was married to Rachel Elma Crislip, born in 1838 and died in 1909. Rachel Elma was the daughter of William Crislip and Hannah Ward (Crislip). The John Thrash family moved from Hampshire County to the Glen Elk Creek section of Harrison County sometime prior to the birth of my father, Marion James Thrash. He was born in this district, which is now a large subdivision of Clarksburg. While he was still a boy the family moved, by wagon, from Glen Elk to Copen Run in Braxton County, a short distance from the Gilmer County line. Perrygreen Crislip, a brother of Rachel Elma, moved his family, also by wagon, at the same time. Perrygreen was the grandfather of Helen Crislip Brady; her father, Grant, and my father were boyhood friends. My father and his siblings always seemed to think of the farm on Copen Run as being "home."

We visited my first cousin, Orma Wilson Musgrave in 1983. Although she was 95 years old at that time she was still living alone at her home in Rivesville, West Virginia. She said that after my parents were married they built a small cabin with a lean-to kitchen on grandfather's farm, and that she was visiting there and at her grandparents in 1897. She remembered the visit so well because my mother became ill and the doctor and mid-wife came for my brother, Gotthart's, delivery.

My parents lived in several locations in Braxton County. They evidently lived near a two room school on a ridge near Centralia in 1906, for it was here Ruby attended school for the first time. She was quite thrilled to find the building still standing and in good condition in 1977. We made a trip through that area in the summer of that year.

Beulah and Buddy Clinton, Elam Bornstein, Ruby and her husband, John Nicolais, Troy and I visited the graves of my two brothers, who died in childhood. They were buried in the Poplar Ridge Cemetery, close to the two room school and not far from the town of Sutton. We found the shaft monument at their graves almost illegible. We put it in our car and took it to be recut. On July 24th of the next year (1978) we took it back and reset the stone. On this trip we found the graves of my grandparents, Michael and Rachel Elma Thrash, at the Big Run Cemetery near Napier, where they ran a store.

Micheal Thrash was born Jan. 2, 1834 and died Oct. 5, 1903. His wife, Rachel Elma Crislip, was born Aug. 26, 1838 and died March 30, 1909. They are the parents of Marion James Thrash and the grandparents of Elizabeth Thrash Brady, the researcher of this family genealogy.

We are fortunate to have the two good pictures of this family. One is of the then living children of Micheal Thrash and Rachael Elma Crislip Thrash, their spouses and six of the grandchildren. The other is of the children alone. The family had been called home because of the serious illness of Grandfather. He died Oct, 5, 1903. I was told this picture, and one of just the brothers and sisters, was taken the day before his death. Grandfather and Grandmother lived at Napier, W. Va. in Braxton County, where he owned a store. Uncle Claude and Aunt Dora were still single at that time.